Two hours south of New Orleans, between Port Fourchon and Grand Isle, Louisiana 1 bridges coastal marsh that was rapidly becoming sea. Over the past 50 years, the shoreline has retreated about a half mile.

But on Tuesday (March 21), state officials celebrated a comeback for this stretch of coastline. Louisiana's largest ecosystem project ever has restored a 13-mile stretch of beach and dune between the Belle Pass outlet of Bayou Lafourche and Elmer's Island.

Fine white sand stretches as far as the eye can see, on some of the freshest land in the United States. It's a far cry from how Brad Miller, the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority manager for the project, describes the shoreline three years ago: "Before the project was here, you'd be standing four to five feet lower than you are now," he said.

The sand was sucked up from the sea bottom almost 40 miles away in the Gulf of Mexico from an area known as a shoal. "So, a shoal is an old delta, and this came from Ship Shoal, which was part of ... it's called the Maringouin Delta, so it's about 7,000 or 8,000 years old," Miller said.

Barges carried the sand to staging areas off the coast. The sand was then piped onto the shoreline, where it was moved around with bulldozers.

"So, on a good day there'd just be a circle of barges going non-stop. They'd be unloading one, filling one up, one or two empty going back and one or two full coming here," Miller said. "And this circle of barges going nonstop. They worked 24 hours a day -- Christmas, New Year's everything."

Building the beach cost about $216 million. The money came from state government, the federal Coastal Impact Assistance Program and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund. Gov. John Bel Edwards described the project as a big win for Louisiana.

"This is an incredible 13-mile stretch of beach, and it's just the first example of the next generation of projects that we're excited to be advancing in the coastal restoration master plan," Edwards said. "These projects are going to test our ability to think outside of box in terms of bringing sediment from outside the system, designing structures that don't exist in scope or scale anywhere else, bringing multiple and diverse stakeholders to the state and certainly but not least finding the funding opportunities necessary to actually build the projects."

Not everyone is happy. Residents of nearby Chenier say the restoration project has impaired public access to the beach. Ellen Melancon says not being able to drive and park on the beach will make it difficult for older residents to enjoy the new shoreline.

"Us old people can't walk down there everyday. We just can't," Melancon said. "And the majority of the tourists and the majority of the residents here are over 50 for sure, mostly over 60. I mean, we moved here to retire."

State officials have offered to build a boardwalk, but Melancon says that's not enough.

"I think the boardwalk is a stupid, stupid waste of money," she said. "Who's going to walk three miles with fishing gear and ice chests? Who's going to walk? They wasting their money."

Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Jack Montoucet says the department is open to ideas for improving access. But it must protect the state's investment from further erosion.

"We understand what they're faced with. And, I'm not saying we can't find some common ground, and that's what we're going to try to find," he said.

"But ... if we wouldn't have made this kind of investment, we may not even have this at all. Then what would we do? Where would you drive then? You'd be riding your boat right here," Montoucet said. "We understand their plight. We understand what the potential for this for them is. And there may be a way we can work it out."

The state's coastal master plan calls for more than $50 billion in restoration and protection projects. But all of the funding has not yet been identified. Edwards and others are lobbying President Donald Trump's administration for more money and pitching restoration projects as critical infrastructure for protecting not just the environment but people, homes and businesses. Time is of the essence.